How Can You Lure Consumers Into Loving Your Brand?

by: Dan Herman

Our starting point is to be clear as to what we mean by "love for a brand". The love of a brand is more similar to the love of ice-cream than the love for a spouse. Love for a brand is actually a strong feeling of anticipation for something good, pleasant or beneficial that we believe with great certainty that we will get from the brand. It is the anticipation for good experiences, pleasant sensations or positive emotions. Consumers love the M&M chocolate candies, buying at IKEA, driving a BMW, using a Nokia telephone or searching for information in Google, exactly because of the focused and intensive anticipation which they enthusiastically describe as "love". But we, as professionals, need to understand what is behind the verbal descriptions of consumers, so that we will be able to stimulate such feelings. To stimulate anticipation for benefit is a more approachable task than to "stimulate love".

How do consumers "fall in love" with a brand?

Structurally, it happens in the same process as people falling in love with people. Let me describe how this happens. We all have beliefs as to what will satisfy our needs, what will be good for us and will make us happy. In many cases we are not aware of them or are only partially aware. Often they are not phrased in words, but exist in fleeting images and scenarios that we experience by imagination. They form our pre-disposition to desire.

When a brand succeeds in being perceived by us as a tangible realization of our abstract beliefs regarding what will be good for us (the pre-disposition) - the anticipation that the brand will be good for us is the result. The brand is thus perceived as an opportunity to achieve the benefit that we have in our imagination. This is also what happens when we are seduced or fall in love with a partner, and this is also where the similarity between love for a brand and love as the basis for a relationship between people, ends. We anticipate that the brand will be good for us and therefore we want it. The commitment that we have towards people and the mutual pact that exists in relationships can never be formed towards a brand.

How do we create the "Click"?

The process of developing a brand starts with an insight. To reach such an insight we must unearth and interpret the non-conscious set of rules that constitute the pre-disposition of the consumer. There are advanced research tools that help identify this set of rules. They require psychological expertise and advanced interviewing skills and thus they are not commonly used by research firms (The tool that I personally use is called ForeSearch). The insight is only the beginning of the process. We use this to guide the creative process by which we devise a new concept for providing the consumer with a benefit that realizes his pre-disposition. This concept is the basis for the brand.

How to influence the intensity of love?

The more the benefit of the brand is perceived as important and as rare, so will the emotions be stronger. Then there's the question of how far can the brand be trusted to supply such a benefit in a good and consistent manner. Good management can guarantee the second factor. A brilliant strategy is needed for the first factor.

How can you create an important and rare benefit? What you are looking for is a benefit that is intuitively important to the consumer, but not yet connected with your product category (I call this: Off-Core Differentiation). An example of this is the commitment at the heart of the strategy of The Body Shop chain of stores for the protection of the environment and helping the needy all over the world. In this way, successful brands enjoy immunity from imitation by competitors, as what they are doing seems so irrelevant to the category. The second rule is to supply this benefit in a new manner, unique and different from how it is supplied in other product categories.

The benefit can be intangible

Any off-core benefit is by definition an "added value" to the benefit stemming from the product itself, as the benefit from the product itself is naturally on-core. The off-core differentiation that you adopt can be based on a benefit that is not tangible or experiential, but interpersonal, social or psychological. When De-Beers launched the brand "Right-Hand Ring" in 2003, they created a new instrument to achieve a social benefit. A woman can wear a "Right-Hand Ring" on her right hand of course, to signal that she is single, as opposed to a ring on your left hand, which signals engagement or marriage or simply a gift form her spouse (kindly note: in Eastern Europe, for example, the hand symbolism is reversed!). De-Beers created a symbol whose meaning is known to everyone through an extended advertising campaign, and as a result women can use it to send a message to their surroundings.

How will the consumer "discover" the brand?

It is easier for consumers to fall in love with a brand when they feel that "it comes from within them", as opposed to it being "sold" to them. The key to this is what I call "Electrifying Marketing" instead of "Satisfying Marketing". The usual marketing is "Satisfying Marketing" whose main objective is to please the consumer and satisfy him. In contrast, "Electrifying Marketing" promises surprise and excitement, plays hard to get, toys at the consumer and sets conditions and obstacles on the road to sweet satisfaction.

How will you turn your brand into a great show?

A good way to bring the brand's strategy to life is by using the tools of "Drama Theory". Furthermore, the success of a brand, which has an intangible value beyond the function of the product itself, depends on the consumer's willingness to accept something unreal as real, i.e. be in a trance (I call this "The Brand's Trance"). Drama has been known for centuries to put audiences into a trance where they allow themselves to be swept away by unrealistic plots. I usually begin the development of the creative approach for the brand's expression, presence and unfolding, with an analysis of the "Drama of the Brand". Every powerful brand provides the consumer with a benefit that he yearns for, and that is neither easy nor simple to achieve. The Drama of the Brand is the confrontation of two forces that occurs when the consumer attempts to achieve our brand's promised benefit, even before our brand is known to him. This analysis involves questions such as: what happens to the consumer when he is trying to achieve the benefit in other ways? What attempts and efforts does he make? What is the result? What internal and external difficulties does he encounter? How do they manifest themselves? How does he fail? And then? how does our brand help him in achieving the benefit he is seeking? Such clarification raises all the necessary materials for "dramatizing" the brand in a way that generates inside the consumer an exhilarating feeling of "found it!"

About The Author

Dr. Dan Herman, a globally renowned strategy consultant, an author and a lecturer, is the author of "Outsmart the MBA Clones: The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing, and Branding" ( http://www.outsmart-mba-clones.com ). The book is available from amazon.com.

The 5% That Determine Your Company's Success

by: Dan Herman

I have encouraging news for you: many of your competitors are afraid of strategy. You might call it strategophobia. Strategy has two terrifying characteristics. First, strategy is a choice. "We are going to go for target customers X, and not the rest," or "The major benefit we will offer consumers is Z and not all sorts of other things."

It seems that when you choose, you have to give something up. There are executives who are not willing to give up on a target group of customers, as if they "have them" or stand a realistic chance of getting them all. This is one of the sweetest but most dangerous illusions managers have. They aren't willing to define a particular benefit as the major benefit they have to offer their consumers, out of fear that the consumer might be tempted to try a different benefit elsewhere. Strategizing means choosing to focus and concentrate your energies in order to provide yourself with an advantage. You go about this by establishing your brand as the source of a certain benefit. If you don't, you probably won't be identified with any benefit and consumers will have no good reason to think of you and buy from you when they need or desire something.

When you adopt a strategy, you're "giving up" all sorts of things that you don't actually have in order to acquire something tangible, something you can sink your teeth into.

The second terrifying characteristic of strategy is differentiation from competitors. To be different, that's really a possibility that could cause nightmares. Why? Primarily because basic conservatism says that if that's what everyone does, there must be a good reason for it. And that's true. The component of "good management practices," which everyone strives for, is essential. It doesn't create an advantage over competitors and you should never confuse it with strategy, but it is essential. Beyond this, managers are always so busy dealing with competition that they are more worried about preventing their competitors from gaining an advantage than they are about creating an advantage for themselves. And so those managers are busy trying to imitate their competitors rather than striving to be different. A good defensive game really does help you not lose. But in order to win, you need to score every now and then.

For this, you need a strategy. No alternative, sorry.

The 5 Percent That Makes All the Difference

By definition, strategy is the way you plan to achieve your goals. In a competitive environment, your goal is for your customer to buy from you and not from your competitors. Therefore, strategy is the way in which you plan to achieve an advantage over your competitors, in the consumers' eyes. Differentiation is almost always a pre-condition for achieving such advantage. You must do something differently from your competitors so that you provide certain consumers with a good reason for preferring you.

Many marketers think that differentiation means that a company has to be different than its competitors from A to Z. Not true. The comforting secret is that you don't need to be different in everything in order to succeed, only in certain things. If you look at the managers of competing companies in the same market category, no matter what the field, you'll see that 95 percent of their concerns, decisions and day-to-day activities are very similar. It may be surprising, but in 95 percent of their actions, executives in competitive companies are doing nearly the same things. That's the "good management" that we talked about.

If you take cellular company CEOs, for example, and interview each of them separately, asking them what's important to them, you're likely to hear pretty much the same thing from all of them: "I want an infrastructure technology with a horizon for future developments; I want more exciting phones; I must have great client service, a flexible and efficient billing system, and great added value and content services." Everyone will say exactly the same thing, because that is what is expected of a good cellular company. But good management isn't a strategy.

If everyone does the same thing, and everyone is talented enough to do it well, would consumers differentiate between companies? Why should they prefer your company? Because you do it better? There's practically no chance that "better" is something consumers will notice, nor is it an advantage that you can maintain over time.

The secret is in the other 5 percent. The 5 percent you do differently is your differentiation which is your strategy. If 5 percent sounds too little for you, I suggest that you remember that human beings and chimpanzees are 98 percent identical in their genetic makeup. If 2 percent can make that big a difference, then 5 percent, planned wisely, can do even more. Other concepts you know, such as positioning (your situation, relative to your competitors', in the consumer's mind vis-a-vis his purchasing considerations), and "critical success factors" (what you must do in your field in order to succeed) relate to good management, not strategy. Note that positioning and differentiation are not at all synonymous! Positioning refers to the comparison between you and your competitors in all parameters that are significant to consumers, which they use to compare their options. Differentiation refers to what sets you apart. Since it's something that is true only about you, there's no comparison in this respect. Good management provides you with the entrance ticket to the competition. Strategy allows you to win the battle for the consumer.

I want to illustrate the principle of 5 percent difference for you with an admittedly unconventional, but very elucidating example. Mind you, I do not mean to glorify this company, just to make a point.

In Canada, there is a news company called Naked News, and it broadcasts upbeat news and current events programs to more than 170 nations daily on the Internet, as video on demand (V.O.D.) on cable and satellite-TV as well as over mobile phones and other handheld devices.

Most of what the managers and other staff in this news company do is exactly what their colleagues in any other news company in the world do. But Naked News does one thing a little differently, and that's the reason some viewers prefer it (despite the premium price). Tagged "the channel with nothing to hide," Naked News' attractive anchor persons (well, mainly young women) cover politics, business, sports, entertainment and the weather - while totally naked.

You may prefer a less controversial approach. That's fine. As long as you get the principle right.

About The Author

Dr. Dan Herman, a globally renowned strategy consultant, an author and a lecturer, is the author of "Outsmart the MBA Clones: The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing, and Branding"

( http://www.outsmart-mba-clones.com ). The book is available from amazon.com.

Management Tip: Quit Working For Your Boss

by: Daryl Cowie

As a manager do you know who you really work for? I don't mean the person who signs your paycheck or does your annual review. I mean day by day, hour by hour, who are you working for?

If you say it's your customers, that's great you've been paying attention in marketing class. Ultimately everyone is working for the customer, but is that really who you work for on a daily basis? Do you personally take their orders? Do you personally answer the support calls? Do you get in the truck and drive your product over to the customer to help them unload and get it ready to use? If you are a manager I truly hope this is not what you come to work to do. These are the things your team is there to do. You may need to pitch in from time to time, but that's not what managers are primarily there to do.

If you say it's your supervisor, well I'm sure they will be happy to hear that. Your supervisor should be the one to define your purpose in the organization and help give you direction. So you could say the work you do on a daily or hourly basis is work for your supervisor. But is that really who you spend the bulk of your time trying to help? I hope not.

Let's look at the activities good managers spend their time on. Employee development, process optimization, cost control. You make sure your people know what needs to be done and are working on the right things. You make sure your people have the tools they need to get the job done effectively and efficiently. You make sure your people get to work in a safe and respectful environment. You make sure your people get the training they need to be effective and advance. You look for ways to make your team as effective as possible. You help your people become the best they can be. You help your team become the best it can be. The bulk of the work you do (or should be doing) is for your team. You work for your team.

So as a manager forget the idea that everyone is working for you. That thinking leads you down the path to ego and conflict. Your team is working to get things done for the customer. You, as their manager, are working for your team to get them everything they need to be effective in serving your customers. The best, most highly-valued managers alive are the ones out there working for their teams and giving them everything they need to succeed.

The more people you manage, the more people you are working for, not the other way around. A bigger team doesn't take away your work, it increases it.

So the next time you draw your team organization chart, flip it upside down with your CEO at the bottom, you somewhere in the middle, and the people who actually come in contact with the customer on a daily or hourly basis at the top where they belong. The goal of a great manager is to create the best team of people at the top of this upside down pyramid serving the customer.

About The Author

Daryl Cowie has shared management tips with 1000s of people in over 30 countries around the world. His mission is to help you and your company turn business opportunities into business realities. Sign up for his free business management home study course at http://FreeManagementTips.com

Customer Service Management Tips - Part 2

by: Daryl Cowie

In part 1 we discussed the importance of Post-Sale Customer Support teams in retaining repeat customers, and why this is so important. Now let's look at some practical customer service management tips to help you get the job done.

What Is the Role of Customer Support

The customer support team needs to ensure customers are happy by representing the customer's interests inside the business at time when no one else is motivated to do so.

The customer support team, along with the sales team, represents the customer's interests inside the company. The sales team does it to get new customers. The support team does it to keep existing customers.

The major challenge that customer support teams face within most organizations is that it is hard to tie specific support activity to a specific amount of revenue dollars. There is always a temptation to ignore your existing customers, because they probably won't leave right away. There is always a temptation to ignore any customer that doesn't have an open order because as a business you need to raise enough money to pay your bills and your employees in order to stay in business.

What Can Support Team Managers Do?

As a Customer Support manager, there are a few things you can do to help your cause.

Recognize that fundamentally the Customer Support team is there to ensure repeat orders. Know the repeat order potential of each customer and factor that into the time, money and priority you give any given customer. Very often a small number of customers take up a large percentage of the customer support time and budget. Make sure you are not neglecting the high potential customers because you are busy serving the needs of needy customers with lower potential. I know we like to help everyone, but let's face it you make priority decisions every day on which issues to handle first. Many customer support teams have no idea what the repeat order potential of any given customer is. Make sure you know, and make sure that repeat order potential is at least as big a factor in your decisions as how loud the customer is. Tying action to financials will get the attention and support of upper management.

Get to know the Sales team. In most organizations the sales teams are much more influential than the support teams, it's just a fact of life. The sales teams are also the people inside the company who benefit the most from good customer support. They get the credit and the commission checks for repeat orders. Let the sales team know when their high potential customers are having issues, and when you are not getting the support you need to help them. You can be guaranteed that a commissioned sales rep will not sit idly by and risk losing a repeat customer. Keep the sales team in the loop. When things go well, tell them. It's a great opportunity for them to go in and make their next pitch. When problems are brewing, tell them that too so they can avoid walking into the lion's den with a new sales pitch, and instead make a timely service call to show they care and offer assistance. The sales team is motivated, influential, and has the most to lose from poor customer service. You already have the power to help them; use it to help them help you.

Look for ways to actively help your customers use the products or services they buy from you. Don't just wait for complaints and repair calls to come in. Think of ways that you could help your customer's use your products. Think about this. If you can help a customer use something he or she has already purchased, they will be much more likely to come back a second time. If you can help a customer use up something he or she has already purchased then they will need to come back and replenish their stock. Remember that customer support is there to help the customer use the product or service. Why do you think craft stores sponsor craft fairs? Because it helps people use up their craft supplies, and it also makes them happy. If you can help them use it up, or consume it, then you can rightly claim that you have helped the customer and increased revenue for the business when their frequency of buying increases. Be creative.

Summary

Fundamentally the role of customer support is to ensure repeat sales. Post-sale customer support teams are a critical cog in the business cycle. They should be respected. They should be in constant communication with the sales team. They should be actively looking for ways to help the customer use the products or services they have purchased.

As a customer service manager one of the best things you can do for your team is to learn to tie their actions to the business financials. That's how decisions are made at the top.

About The Author

Daryl Cowie has shared management tips with 1000s of people in over 30 countries around the world. His mission is to help you and your company turn business opportunities into business realities. Sign up for his free business management home study course at http://FreeManagementTips.com

Customer Service Management Tips - Part 1

by: Daryl Cowie

Customer support teams are perhaps the most misunderstood, and underappreciated teams in the business world. In many businesses the customer support staff talks to the customers more than every other team combined. They play a critical role in ensuring customers are satisfied. Satisfied customers are repeat customers. Everybody knows that a large percentage of business comes from repeat customers. And yet customer support teams are commonly staffed with junior, inexperienced people that don't have the authority to make any decisions, or the training and knowledge to answer difficult questions. What's the deal?

What is Customer Support?

First, let's clarify what I mean by "Customer Support", because different companies use this term in wildly different ways. I am talking about the team that takes care of the customer after the contract has been signed and the initial invoice has been paid. You may work in a company where a customer service team handles the transaction from order to invoice. You may have been taught that customer service starts when the customer walks in the door, and doesn't end until the customer dies or decides not to be a customer any more. These are fine concepts, but what I am talking about here is the role of taking care of the customers' needs after the invoice has been paid, and before they have expressed a specific interest in buying again. I refer to this as Post-Sale Customer Support to differentiate it from other definitions.

What's So Important About Post-Sale Customer Support?

As a customer, up until the time that the invoice is paid you always hold the trump card of being able to withhold payment if you are not satisfied. And everybody understands that money talks. After the invoice has been paid you can often be left feeling powerless. The delivery team has collected their money and been assigned a full load of new customer transactions to look after. The sales team is being pressured to focus on customers who have already expressed a specific interest in making a purchase to meet monthly sales targets. So who takes care of you now?

This is where customer support comes in. There is a general feeling within most companies that they need to provide some sort of post-sale customer support, but there is a poor understanding of why. The sales team brings in the customers – which equals the promise of money. The orders team works out the details – which equals the promise of money. The delivery team provides the solution – which equals the collection of actual money. The customer support team ensures the customer is able to use the solution – which equals what? Happiness and karma? Let's face it; shareholders can't trade in their karma for a retirement home. Companies want money.

Here's what people are missing. In a healthy business between 25 and 75 percent of all revenues should come from repeat customers. 25% to 50% is considered typical for a healthy retail outlet, and 75% repeat business would be the top end for a healthy service business. Retail outlets with less than 25% repeat business are probably not meeting their customer needs or more of them would be coming back. Service businesses with more than 75% repeat sales are probably losing their skills at generating new customers and run the risk of severe financial problems if they lose 1 or 2 major accounts. Any way you look at it, a very large part of your business should be coming from repeat customers.

The other factor you need to look at is that the cost of getting a new customer is much higher than the cost of keeping a customer that you already have. Marketing and advertising are expensive business.

Smart businesses invest in retaining customers. That's what customer support is all about. There is no better time to ensure repeat business than when your customers are feeling that they have no leverage. That is exactly when they appreciate your support the most, and will remember it as something that makes them want to come back.

In part 2 of this series we'll look at some practical management tips for customer service managers to get the business behind your team and your customers.

About The Author

Daryl Cowie has shared management tips with 1000s of people in over 30 countries around the world. His mission is to help you and your company turn business opportunities into business realities. Sign up for his free business management home study course at http://FreeManagementTips.com

The Unsuccessful Habits of Hard Working People

by: Daryl Cowie

We've all heard the phrase work smarter, not harder. It's one of those motivational statements that once held a great message, but now days is more often used to mean "You're taking too long. Quit complaining and get it done". In many ways these messages are not that different, but they hold two very different sentiments.

The truth is, many of us need to work smarter instead of harder, but we don't really know how to get from where we are to where we need to be. I was brought up believing that hard work is the key to success and fulfillment. Work harder than anyone else and you'll get recognition for it. While this is true in many ways, this philosophy can also severely restrict the level of success you achieve.

While working hard truly is a virtue, it also has some basic failings. First of all the hard work principle lends itself to measuring how hard, or long you work instead of what you are getting done. Many hard workers feel they are entitled to rewards as long as they put in long hours or carry heavy loads. It can lead to resentment of people who have figured out how to work shorter hours for larger rewards. Instead of admiring them, you see them as lazy and undeserving. Hard workers are often frustrated by the efforts of people around them that they feel are not making the same contribution, or reaching the same level of productivity as they are. What the "hard working" crowd is missing is that every employee is hired to get a result, not to fill an empty space.

Look at it this way. Pretend for a moment that you were doing the hiring and paying the bill. Would you rather pay a hard working man with an axe for 2 months to clear your land of trees, or pay a lazy dude with a chainsaw who can do it in one month? What I'd really like is a hard working man with a chainsaw, but given the choices I'll take the man who made the smart tool choice over the one who works hard. Why? Bottom line, it gets the job done faster and cheaper, which is what I really want.

The second failing of the hard working philosophy is a tendency to want to jump into action without a well thought out plan. Let’s get moving! The problem with this is that the devil is in the details. I have seen many hastily laid plans leap into instant action and gain immediate progress. I have seen just as many of these plans sitting in the trash bin after huge amounts of time and money have been invested in them because they didn't actually accomplish what the customer really wanted. By the time they figured they weren't going to meet the real requirements they had too much invested in the hastily chosen direction to make the required corrections. A common companion of these discarded plans is the discarded manager who goes along with it. Action is critical, but first you must ensure your actions contribute to a plan that actually ends in the right results.

In both cases of these cases, the work hard philosophy is missing the main opportunity. A smart plan is better than a hard working plan every time. But we are taught to spring to action. Get to work. Get it started. The reality is that working hard without a plan is fruitless. Working hard at things no one cares about is simply not productive.

Making smart choices that contribute to the results that matter to other people is one of the keys to success. Solid up-front goals and objectives planning sessions are critical to your personal success and to the success of everything you endeavor to do. If you're a hard working person, learning to effectively recognize the goals and intelligently plan objectives and strategies to accomplish them is one of the best investments you can make in yourself.

My success management tip for hard workers: learn to plan smart first, and then work hard. This is the unbeatable combination.

About The Author

Daryl Cowie has shared management tips with 1000s of people in over 30 countries around the world. His mission is to help you and your company turn business opportunities into business realities. Sign up for his free business management home study course at http://FreeManagementTips.com

All You Need To Know About Pay Per Click Advertising

by: Derek Rogers

What is Pay Per Click Advertising?
It is just as it sounds. You place an advertisement, usually text or graphic, and you pay each time someone clicks that advertisement. Sounds simple enough right? Though simple, it is a very powerful form of advertising that in many cases makes more sense than other methods of advertisement. How does Pay Per Click Advertising work and why is it the best choice for your business? That is a good question, let's have a look.

Targeted Audience

With Pay Per Click advertising, also known as PPC, you have the ability to target your unique audience. Sure, you have other methods of advertisement that may target a portion of your customer base, but with PPC, you have a more defined method of targeting. You target your specific customer base with solid keywords. These keywords are crucial to your advertisement. If you operate a chocolate business, you might use keywords such as chocolate, chocolate candy, candy, gourmet chocolate, and the list could actually continue to grow.

However, what makes PPC so useful is that it incorporates these keywords to make it work for you. Your pay per click advertising will not show up until a user searches for your keyword terms. The next way that PPC works best for businesses is that it works well within your budget.

Costs and Budgets

The great thing about pay per click advertising is that it is designed to work within any budget. With many sites that promote PPC advertising, you have the ability to define just how much you are willing to pay. However, it is important to note that you will likely be in competition with other businesses, depending on your keyword. The more you pay per click the higher you will be on the search engine results; this is of course dependent upon your competitors and what they bid to pay as well.

As your pay per click campaign goes along, you will have the ability to monitor your campaign. If at any time you feel that your specific campaign is not working as well for your business as you had hoped, you can change it, add another, or delete the campaign as you see fit.

What makes pay per click advertising so appealing is that you are only charged when someone clicks on your advertisement, hence the name pay per click. With other advertising methods, you are charged when your advertisement is displayed or rotated. With PPC, you pay only when a potential customer clicks on the advertisement to visit your website. This is a great cost efficient method of advertisement.

Just Works Better

Pay per click advertising just works better because you know, if you have chosen the right keywords, that when someone clicks on your ad to visit your site, that they are doing so because they are truly interested in what you have to offer via their search terms. This means that each and every person that clicks on your advertisement is a targeted potential customer, which means more likelihood for a sale or membership.

About The Author

Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who represents many UK businesses. For pay per click, he recommends Impact Media Ltd, one of the UK's leading specialists of http://www.impactmedialtd.co.uk/search-marketing/pay-per-click/ppc-management.htm pay per click services.